Better By Nightfall

I happen to think myself a mellow, patient and tolerant person. I am not too akin to rage and I really only get pissy when I don't have my coffee, but today re-opened my bitterness with insanely massed public spaces.

I want to use another word to describe what my shopping experience at IKEA was like, but to use any other word (which also functions as a general expression) fails to fully encompass my antipathy for the douchebaggery that occurs when masses come together over anything cheap.

Look, I'm not trying to piss on the parade of cheap furniture at IKEA. Hell, I bought $260 worth of it despite the fact that it is mostly particle wood (and will probably break if I ever move). Also, I must say that MOST of the employees at IKEA were friendly and helpful. What I am pointing to, however, is the fact that people lose their sense of decency and civility when they gather in mass in confined spaces. Once people come into contact with others while looking for "personal" items, be it food (like at CostCo) or furniture (like at IKEA), all decorum goes out the window and everyone is in it like a free-for-all. It's almost like everyone's innate pre-historic piss-poor self rears in the face of nabbing the best item before someone else does.

For example, while shopping for items today, I parked my cart at the end of an aisle near some picture frames. No carts were near me and since on of the tires on my cart kept careening to the right, I didn't want to overcorrect it as I walked through the aisle. Apparently this bothered a woman in her late forties who, upon seeing me park the cart, grabbed it and pushed it out of the way to the aisle across the way. I glared at her as she did and said, "Uh, that was my cart." She sneered bitterly in my direction and strode up the aisle without saying a word, all so she could fat arm a few frames into her cart.

I have witnessed this pandemic of douchebaggery many times before at CostCo and I am always dismayed by it. In fact, I utterly dread going to CostCo because people become retarded (figuratively speaking, of course) over food. People run ahead to grab free samples, they cart cut to get a better place in line, and they are complete assholes in the parking lot while parking, loading, and leaving. Apparently people at IKEA are no different. (And yes, I know Labor Day weekend might have contributed to this, probably making it even worse, but I still feel that people are increasingly rude toward one another.)

Let's forget IKEA and CostCo for a minute, though, and question the source of the problem: massive gatherings of people in enclosed spaces.

RQ: What is it about enclosed spaces that breeds indifference in people toward others?

Seriously, did I miss something while I was growing up? Were there lessons taught in school that I missed, even though I had near perfect attendance? Did the cowboy culture of bygone administrations impart dickheadedness to the culture at large? What happened? </end rant>

Bottom line: People need to chill out at these places and treat everyone with respect. We're all shopping for many of the same things and, unless the world is about to end, the items will be around. Even if they aren't, it is not like one couldn't obtain them later. There is no reason to push people's carts out of the way, cut them off, or be a complete douche bag in the parking lot. Human decency isn't a virtue, it is an unspoken obligation toward humanity at large.

Basically, don't be a dick. (This means you, cart lady and asshole driver who didn't let me back out when I was halfway out.)